New yorkers are drawn to other cities in much the same way great chefs like to check out each other’s restaurants. We’re confident that we do, in fact, live in the best place in the world, but we’re curious to see what other people have done with their urban environment. For this special edition of Strategist, we subjected six great metropolises—London, Paris, Los Angeles, Sydney, Rome, and Miami—to the same scrutiny we bring to our own city every week. Where are the best places right now to drink, shop, flirt, eat, sleep, dance? We found them. Now all you have to do is get on the plane.

It is 8 p.m., still early enough for tourists to stroll about and city buses to zoom by, and also too early for the arrival of Karl Lagerfeld, designer of Chanel, Fendi, Lagerfeld Collection, a new Karl Lagerfeld line, and “the reason we are all here!”

Peter Braunstein had a full pantheon of female style icons (Edie Sedgwick, Jane Fonda, Kate Moss) and a passion for Manolos as intense as Carrie Bradshaw’s. Then, fired from his job at Fairchild, jilted by a girlfriend, he descended into a world of dark fantasies—into which he allegedly brought a former colleague in a bizarre assault. The making of a tabloid monster.

Hotelier turned developer André Balazs moved to Soho in 1984 and reimagined downtown in his own oh-so-tasteful image.

Newbie poet (and teen hero) Amber Tamblyn versifies on Les Moonves, Dick Cheney, and the celebrity-industrial complex.

Conan O’Brien talks constantly about how no one cares about his show because it’s on too late. But in four years, when he takes over for Jay Leno, he’ll no longer have that excuse. Does comedy’s crown prince need a whole new shtick?

A Diagnosis

Lourdes Gruart walked the runways in Milan and Paris for more than a decade. But as her career waned and she felt her jet-set social life slipping away, she became engulfed in paranoia, romantic obsession, and an enthusiasm for Santería. Then she disappeared.

Calling all models! Hold the attitude! Four clubland veterans race to open Gotham's next hot spot.